Women's Surrey CC League Division 1, Wimbledon Common

Great packing - but Ranelagh unstoppable on the Common

With a record turn-out of 16 Belgrave women, including 6 who were making their first competitive outing for the Belles, this was always going to be a good start to the season.

Rachel Weston took the honour of being first Belle home with 15th place. Let’s hope that Rachel can continue to stay injury free and be a regular scorer for the team this season, as things haven’t gone so well for her on the injury front in recent years. With this top performance of the day things are looking promising.

New girl Sarah Murphy showed that she will be a great addition to the team. She has competed internationally before, but hasn’t raced for many a year and now looks set to be making a strong comeback under Charlie Dickinson’s guidance. Sarah was just seconds down on Rachel and just one place further back was Tilly Heaton who seems to have recovered well from a mammoth 3 week bike ride across the country. Good packing from the team.

Vicky Clarke has really taken well to the cross country and although she left her arrival till late in the day, she more than made up for it in the race. Fifth to score, and slightly disappointed with her performance was team captain Juliette Clark. Sadly it wasn’t her day, but Jules’ performances so far this season reassure us that this is just a minor blip.

Our A team came home in second place in a closely fought battle with Thames Hare and Hounds. Ranelagh’s team performed superbly though to take the top honours, with Allison O’Neill over from France and finishing in third. Top individual was the consistent Lucy Hassell of Thames, with Eleanor Baker of SLH just seconds down.

We did provide the first B team (and second C team) which will no doubt surprise many of our observers. It’s great to see that the Belles are finally achieving strength in depth. Given that a number of our runners were out of action this is a promising indication of what we can do in the future.

We have to thank our new girls for joining in the spirit of cross country and look forward to them becoming regular team members on both road and cross country. Christine Bertram was our next new girl home, but sadly in a non-scoring position as we’re still waiting for her to be cleared having only just arrived from Germany. Victoria Jones is a 4 hour marathon runner but wanted to try out the fields for some strength work and finished a credible 76th. Kimberley Scarfe has been an outstanding triple jumper in her earlier athletics career but has switched to longer distances in her comeback to the sport. Charlotte Rehn and Sarah Castle would be the first to admit they’re not elite runners, however, they provided valuable support to our C team ensuring for the first time ever that we completed 3 scoring teams in the cross country, and neither appeared put off by the fields. Well done girls, and we look forward to you becoming regulars.

Thanks go to all the team for being there and putting the claret and gold vests in the picture. Rumour has it that 3 of Ranelagh’s top 5 scorers won’t be around for the next race in Richmond Park, so let’s pull all the stops out to get ourselves back at the top of the league again. It was a nice feeling being champions last year and we won’t give in without a fight!

1 L.Hassell (Thames H&H) 20:59; 2 E.Baker (South London) 21:02; 3 A.O'Neil (Ranelagh) 21:12; 4 M. Pannett (Dulwich) 21:52; 5 L.Shelley (Ranelagh) 21:59; 6 J.Ronaldson (Ranelagh) 22:06; 15 R.Weston 33:29; 16 S.Murphy 23:31; 17 M.Heaton 23:42; 21 V.Clarke 23:48; 25 J.Clark W40 24:03; 29 H.Smethurst W40 24:30; 33 A.Hegvold W35 24:37; 40 R.Powell 24:58; 45 C.Bertram 25:38; 68 H.Alsop W35 27:08; 77 V.Jones 27:43; 94 C.Eastham 28:41; 109, K.Scarfe 29:31; 144 C.Rehn W35 33:26; 158 S.Castle W35 39:03.

Teams: 1 Ranelagh H 'A' 39; 2 Belgrave H 'A' 94; 3 Thames H&H 99; 4 South London H 106; 5 Dulwich R 141; 6 Epsom & Ewell 196; ... 9 Belgrave H 'B' 245; ... 25 Belgrave H 'C' 604; 38 teams closed in.

Restored from the club's earlier website, belgraveharriers.com, and published here as originally written.